Update on Deducting State Sales Tax

Regarding my earlier blog post on keeping track of your sales tax expenditures for federal tax purposes, I read an article this morning in the Seattle Times regarding the federal deduction for state sales tax. Looks like Congress is considering making it permanent. A bill presented by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) passed in the Senate and is now headed to the House.

Using Sales Tax as a Federal Tax Deduction

We got our tax refund deposited in our checking account on Wednesday--very fast this year! We filed on March 3, so it took just over a week. Woot! More for the unemployment survival fund!

With taxes on my mind, I thought I'd mention this. For the past few years, residents in states without a state income tax (Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, Wyoming) could take a federal income tax deduction for any sales taxes paid. There is a standard deduction you can take, or you can keep track of all your sales tax expenditures. You can take the higher of the two as the deduction. Congress has not yet decided if they are going to extend this for 2009, or as a permanent deduction, or get rid of it, but I'm hedging my bet and continuing to track my sales tax expenditures (our sales tax here in Washington is 9%).

I have been tracking my sales tax expenditures for several years, and have always had more in sales tax than the standard deduction. Tracking it is not hard, just requires a little bit of dilgence. I have set up a simple spreadsheet with a group of columns (Date, Store, and Amount) for each month. I have the amount totaled automatically by Excel, and also calculate a total amount automatically. I log the tax amount in the spreadsheet, then put the receipt in a regular business-sized envelope (one envelope for each month). It makes finding receipts easy if ever I need to do a return, too. At the end of the year, I print out the spreadsheet and put it with my tax information, and put all the year's envelopes full of receipts into a labeled storage box.

It's worth the effort, I think. If anyone would like a blank copy of my spreadsheet, please leave your email address in a comment using (at) instead of the @ sign.

The Squeaky Wheel HAS Her Tax Refund!

Our property tax refund came today...yippee! As I mentioned back in July, our property taxes had been miscalculated for a couple of years, which I only found out by accident.

The check was for $569.87, of which about $33 was interest. Talk about perfect timing! My husband and our youngest son are going on a special trip to Salt Lake City in October for my son's first time to go to the Priesthood session of LDS General Conference. This will just about cover what we paid ($599) for airfare, 1 night at the Red Lion in downtown SLC, and rental car for Saturday and Sunday.

The Squeaky Wheel Gets the Property Tax Refund!

A few weeks ago, we received our property tax assessment in the mail. We just about choked: the assessed value was $437,000! For our dinky little 1,253-square foot, 3-bedroom, rambler. As if! We were always under the impression that the assessed value should be less than what we could sell it for, and I don't think we could get $437K for our little piece of heaven right now.

So, I went online to look at appeals forms and I got confused. I called the King County Department of Assessments and talked to a very nice woman who told me that the assessed value was based on sales of comparable properties from 2005 to 2007, and that if home sales went down in 2008, we should see an adjustment in our 2009 assessment. OK, fine, I was appeased by that.

Then, she said "while I have you on the line, let's check to be sure we have all your data correct." She went through the info.

• Lot size: check.
• Year built: check.
• Type of construction: check.
• Square feet: 1,750. Uhh...not check!

Where did they get 1,750 from? Upon further investigation and talking to another representative there, we found out that in 2004 someone decided that our garage was "finished living space." No one ever came and inspected the garage, so perhaps it was just a mistake. The nice woman (Barbara) I spoke to said, "well, we have a picture here from the 1960s that shows your house with sliding glass doors in front instead of garage doors." Hmm...my curiosity was piqued! Sliding glass doors instead of garage doors? Who does that? I sorely wished our next-door neighbor, an original owner, were still living in her home instead of in assisted living, so I could ask her if she remembered a time when our house had sliding glass doors.

Anyhoo...Barbara told me to send her some digital photos of the inside and outside of the garage and she would forward them to the correct department and see what they could do. I took the photos and sent them that night (a Monday) and by the next morning my inbox was full of email from Barbara and the "correct department." They immediately agreed that the garage was obviously not living space and said a property tax refund would be forthcoming. Whoo hoo! We had no idea how much we would get, or when, but were very pleased with the quick, courteous, and positive response of the entire Department of Assessments. So, we were happy to wait to hear more. In the meantime, Barbara sent us a copy of the house with its sliding glass garage doors. It is from 1966, and knowing (from our neighbor) that this house used to be a model home, our best bet, judging from the signs out front in the yard and what looks to be a sign over the garage, that this house must have also been used as a sales office for the subdivision. Thus, the sliding glass doors at that time.

So, fast forward to yesterday. We got a very nice letter in the mail from the Dept. of Assessments telling us that our taxable value had gone down for 2006, 2007, and 2008 and that we would be receiving a refund on our 2006 taxes of $257.85 plus interest, a refund on our 2007 taxes of $278.57 plus interest, and our 2nd half 2008 tax bill will go down by $301.20. How cool is that??? Our 2009 assessment (which is what we received notice of a few weeks ago) and all future assessments will reflect the correct square footage of 1,253.

Now, I know that this is not exactly a "simple hint" for saving money and living more frugally, but if there is a lesson to be learned here, it is to be sure you know what is going on with all your taxes and assessments, and if you have questions, ask. And, if you are lucky, you will be able to work with the same competent, friendly, patient, and efficient folks as I have had the pleasure of working with!

Oh, and in case you are wondering, we don't have any plans to spend the refund lavishly and foolishly; it is earmarked for our oldest son's drivers' ed class. Sigh.